


Of Legends Big And Small

by yaodai



Category: Naruto
Genre: 3 flavors of terror, Gen, and a stubbornly oblivious hiruzen, but they're a terrifying bunch, this is mostly fluff, tiny sannin are little shits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-01-22 20:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18535009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: Tsunade is a proud little shit.And would you dare to tell her to go to the kitchen? ;)





	1. Chapter 1

1\. The Book

 

Jiraiya was bouncing with excitement. He couldn't help it.  
It was the first time he was going outside the village, an on a ninja mission!

That meant that he was finally ready, finally a real shinobi, about to have amazing adventures and kick so much ass!

The world outside of the Konoha walls didn't look too different than some of the training fields inside of it, with all these huge trees surrounding the dirt path. It felt different; now Jiraiya knew that they were outside, that there were no walls behind the line of the trees.

It felt amazing and Jiraiya was pretty sure he could name the feeling: freedom.

He was free and he could just go and see what was behind the nearest corner,  from up the tree or that hill they were slowly heading towards.

His teammates didn't seem to share his feelings. Jiraiya could understand sensei, because sensei was sort of old and was as old as Konoha and was outside of it on amazing ninja mission so many times.

But he couldn't get why Tsunade looked so annoyed or why Orochimaru was trying to read while walking instead of taking it every awesome thing around them.

"Those are trees," Orochimaru said, when questioned about his lack of enthusiasm. "We have that at home. And dirt. We have dirt."

"But it's dirt from the outside!"

Orochimaru looked at him for one long, uncomfortable moment before he finally decided to blink.

"Whatever," he said and returned to his book.

"You can do that home too," Jiraiya grunted. He pushed hands down his pockets and rushed forward, eager to get away from his teammates and try to salvage what was left of his good mood.

"Your friend is right, you know," sensei said with a warm, amused smile.

"I am?" Jiraiya gasped.

"A shinobi should always pay attention to their surroundings,” Sensei said wisely. And then reached out with his hand open towards Orochimaru and just stood there, waiting.

Orochimaru furrowed his brow and tensed up when the realization came.

He slowly, turned towards Jiraiya, stuff like a broken puppet, eyes wide open and promising bloody murder. It was a creepy kind of glare, the one that came without blinking and with too much white of his eyes visible.

Jiraiya jumped with a startled yelp and then curled behind Tsunade, seeking shelter.

“Coward,” the girl huffed.

“Save me!” he moaned miserably. “He’s scary!”

“You’ve asked for it,” she commented dryly and stepped away, leaving him at the dubious mercy of the angry glare o their other teammate.

Jiraiya whimpered miserably.

“Now, now children!” sensei clapped his hands and laughed. “Mission outside the village are to teach you how to work together and communicate!”

Orochimaru stopped glaring for a moment.

“Can I have my book back?” he asked.

“No.”

Orochimaru returned to glaring. Jiraiya whimpered.

“Can he get his book back, please?” he moaned.

“A good try,” sensei laughed. “But no! Books can’t solve every problem you’re going to face as shinobi and out here they’re just a distraction.”

“But I’m supposed to be interacting, not being murdered!” Jiraiya protested. “And he’s totally going to do it! Murder me! For the book!”

“You don’t even have the book, so it’s not like Oro can rob it off your corpse,” Tsunade rolled her eyes.

“Oh,” sensei blinked. “This is morbid.”

“Is it?” Tsunade blinked dubiously. “Gradma told me she this was how she got her favorite hairpins.”

“Oh dear,” sensei sighed deeply.

Orochimaru glanced at the man with consideration in his eyes.

Jiraiya gulped.


	2. Dinner

  1. Dinner



 

The fire was cracking merrily, puffing up sparks into the quickly darkening skies, while the team was settling up for the night.

Sensei was leaning against the tree and observing them, forcing them to figure out everything by themselves.  
Setting up the camp was easy, same as making fire, but now there was an awkward moment of silence that seemed to have no end.  
Jiraiya finally stopped acting like Orochimaru was about to murder him, but he still kept his distance.

Tsunade sighed and stretched out her legs, idly wondering if she’s going to have a bruise on her shin for trying to kick down that tree or not. She didn’t managed to take it down, but she made a neat dent and it counted as something.

She noticed the prolonging silence only after it was already awkward.  
Looking around didn’t help any - they all just kept glancing at her. Was there something on her head? Did she do something wrong?

"Alright, I'll bite," Tsunade groaned, unable to deal with the silence any longer. "Why is everyone looking at me like that?"

"Well... you know."

"I don't."

"We're camping," sensei said softly. "We have a fire going, we've set up a place to rest..."

"And now is time for supper!" Jiraiya butted in and giggled. "And you are a girl, so you sure are good at it! I can't wait, a meal made by a pretty girl all for me!"

"You can't be serious," she looked up at sensei, but the man just shrugged, the dumb smile still plastered on his face.

"I'm afraid I can't interfere," he said. "I'm here to observe how well the Academy prepared you for situation like this one."

Tsunade felt a pang of rage, red hot and overwhelming, like someone set her guts on fire.

She expected something like this to happen.  
She heard other girls at the Academy swap recipes, all excited about the chance of raising their social status - just like their parents told them to - by being the best catch simply because of their cooking skill.

Tsunade didn’t expect it to happen to her.   
She was from the Senju clan, her position was already as high as it could be! If anything, it should be in reverse, people coming and kissing her ass in hopes of gaining prestige!

Still, she made sure to be ready, just in case.

Tsunade stood up, marched to where the bags were, opened her backpack and dug out four packets in bright, eye-catching colors.

Then she tossed three out of them in the direction of her teammates and sensei, taking aim.

Orochimaru ducked with a startled expression on his face, while Jiraiya didn’t even notice that something was tossed in his direction until it hit him over the head.

Sadly, sensei was able to catch it without a problem.

“...ramen?” he asked.

“Dinner’s served!” Tsunade declared with a glare, daring anyone to protest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsunade is a proud little shit.  
> And would you dare to tell her to go to the kitchen? ;)


	3. Gone Fishing

3\. Gone Fishing  
  
The dry ramen was not filling at all.   
Jiraiya woke up feeling like his stomach was trying to wrap itself around his spine.   
  
The distressed growling sound coming from the side was a proof that he wasn't the only one being utterly miserable.   
Everyone was up already; Sensei was leaning against the tree, observing them with his hands crossed on chest, while his teammates were busy with trying to brush all the leaves and tiny bits of sticks out of their hair.   
  
Jiraiya ran fingers through his own mop and decided it was good enough.   
  
"Was this show really worth it?" Sensei asked with a deep sigh.   
  
Tsunade quirked an eyebrow, not even bothering to look up and stop brushing her hair.   
  
"Are you going to tell me to cook again?"   
  
"Is it going to be a dry ramen again?"   
  
"Yes."   
  
Sensei sighed deeply.   
  
"Then it was definitely a yes," Tsunade grinned.   
  
"So who's going to cook the breakfast?" Jiraiya decided it was the time to ask the most important question.   
  
"It is for you to decide," sensei smiled at him. "I hope you brought some supplies with you."   
  
Jiraiya winced and squirmed under the heavy gaze of the older ninja, deeply uncomfortable.   
  
"I didn't," he admitted.   
  
"Orochimaru?" Sensei asked.   
  
There was a moment of silence before Orochimaru actually decided he should acknowledge the question.   
  
"Huh?" it was more a sound that any sort of an answer, but considering the still sleepy blinking and the hairbrush forgotten somewhere in the middle of the black mess of hair, it could be explained.  
Orochimaru was not a morning person and those few moments right after he woke up never ceased to be ungodly precious.   
  
"Have you packed any cooking supplies?" Jiraiya asked before sensei could. "You know? Food? That's not dry ramen?"   
  
"No," came the merciless answer.   
  
'Well," sensei said with a cheerful smile. "It looks like you are going to test your knowledge about harvesting in the wild!"   
  
Jiraiya groaned.   
  
Of course, any of them didn't think about packing a fishing rod - Jiraiya didn't even owned one - and it was definitely not the time to set up the snares if they wanted to continue the travel, so they were somewhat stuck.   
  
Orochimaru - the forgotten hairbrush still entangled in his hair - managed to find some edible plants, but they weren't rabbits, so it definitely wasn't enough to feed even one of them.   
  
Jiraiya sighed, looking down at the stream.   
It was quite wide here and didn't look too deep. He could see all sorts of stone underneath the water surface, round and colorful and here and there fish scales were reflecting in the sun, shining like little gems.   
  
Jiraiya sighed again. This early in the morning, the water was definitely ice cold and he wasn't in hurry to get anywhere near that.   
He could try and throw a shuriken or a kunai, it wouldn't be harder than hitting the bullseye at the Academy, right?   
  
On the other hand, the current looked pretty strong, she he could lose his weapons and those didn't come in cheap. Genin payment wasn't all that great and  it was his only source of income now, that he was a real ninja.   
It was enough to rent a room with three other genin - two of them way older than he was - and for food, but anything else had to involve a fair amount of planning his budget.   
  
Humming, Jiraiya sat cross legged a few feet away from the stream and considered his option.   
He could grab a kunai and try to stab a fish, but it would force him to stand in the cold, cold water for a long time.   
He probably could find a stick and sharpen it enough to get something a bit longer to try and stab at food, but it still didn't seem like good enough.   
  
What else there was in his backpack? Clothes and stuff like that, a wet stone and some oil, ninja wire and three exploding tags-   
  
Jiraiya grinned.   
  
xxx   
  
"What in the world were you thinking?!" Sensei stopped reprimanding him, mostly to caught a breath.   
  
Jiraiya shrugged.   
  
"I did caught a fish. A lot of it!"   
  
"You blew up a stream!"   
  
"Only a little bit of it!"   
  
"This is not how you're supposed to fish!"   
  
"It worked!"   
  
"And what if we were in the enemy territory?" Sensei questioned. "You would give away our position with a stunt like that!"   
  
Jiraiya hadn't an answer to that one. They were just transporting a few storage scrolls from Konoha to a civilian village nearby and bringing them right back when packed full and there were no enemy ninja anywhere nearby Konoha.   
Still, sensei looked pretty angry. 

  
"Here, hold this."   
  
Suddenly, Orochimaru was right next to him, showing into his hands a small, hard object.   
  
Jiraiya was too surprised to say anything, to do anything besides just accepting the unexpected gift.   
  
It happened to be a stone. A round and pretty flat one, dark and with white spots and one pinkish strip running almost through the middle of it.   
  
"What?" he finally asked, but Orochimaru was long gone.

“Weirdo,” Jiraiya muttered, looking back down at the rock.

What was he supposed to do with it? The exploding tag definitely worked much better than trying to smash anything with a stone, especially one so small.  
And he definitely wasn’t going to swallow it to stave of the hunger, he wasn’t stupid!

But if not that, then...what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's gonna guess what the rock is for? ;)


End file.
